Digital Inequality (Blog Group 2)

As the pace of digital tech quickens, our senior populations are falling behind the learning and usage curves

Those who function better in the digital realm and participate more fully in digitally mediated social life enjoy advantages over their digitally disadvantaged counterparts (Robinson et al., 2015).

Digital technology has become an increasingly pervasive part of all of our daily lives: for most of us just the mere thought of losing our mobile phones creates feelings of fear, confusion, and displacement. As a society we have begun to center our daily habits around our technology usage. But for the seniors in our midst, there is a noted gap in the adoption of digital technology and hence an absence of any of the rewards that come with being plugged in. It is ironic that the people in our society who need tech access and convenience the most are being marginalized by social, economic, and cultural limitations.

The Digital Divide

Seniors, in terms of digital tech adoption, are most often lumped together into a classification of so-called laggards who might never take up the innovation and are characterized by their high age, lower level of education and of being strict traditionalists (Bergström, 2017).

But just as there are differing user slices across the digital landscape such as persuaders and early adopters, being blind to the differentiation of tech usage across consumers of increasing age is doing them a disservice and helping to continue to foster the gap in their capabilities to adopt to innovation.

Having lived outside being able to fully participate in major digital cultural milestones such as the digital influx into our educational systems and the increasingly digitized workplaces in the white-collar world (Robinson et al., 2015), aged communities must fight hard to learn a technology language and lifestyle that is completely foreign to them.

Those of us that are fully functioning online and mobile app users should work to embrace the older consumers in our midst and help bring them intelligently into the interactive fold like these great teenagers did. We take for granted such conveniences as being able to order medicine, pay bills, or chat with family online while for others in our society, being able to participate in these kinds of digital offerings can be a bridge towards living a more comfortable and independent existence.

For additional insights into the challenges faced by our senior citizen population in tech adoption and resources supporting senior tech adoption - please click the links to obtain access:

Digital Equality and the Uptake of Digital Applications among Seniors of Different Age (Bergström, A)

Digital inequalities and why they matter (Robinson et al, 2015)

Best Tech Gadgets for Seniors and Grandparents (Abrahms, S)

---

References

Abrahms, S. (2018, -03-05T07:00:00-08:00). Best tech gadgets for seniors and grandparents. Retrieved from https://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/6-30-15-technology-for-independent-living/

Bergström, A. (2017). Digital equality and the uptake of digital applications among seniors of different age. Nordicom Review, 38, 79-91. doi:10.1515/nor-2017-0398

Lilleston, R. (2017). Youth group helps seniors become tech savvy. Retrieved from http://www.aarp.org/home-family/personal-technology/info-2017/youth-group-teaches-seniors-tech-fd.html

Robinson, L., Cotten, S. R., Ono, H., Quan-Haase, A., Mesch, G., Chen, W., . . . Stern, M. J. (2015). Digital inequalities and why they matter. Information, Communication & Society, 18(5), 569-582. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2015.1012532 References